Introduction Transnational Pathways of Empathy in the Americas

Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 2022

In January 2008, the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera puzzled visitors to the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London when she brought in two horses ridden by uniformed mounted police officers who were using crowd management techniques to control the visitors. In August 2012, she once again surprised the public at the same venue when she presented a fragment of her long-term project Immigrant Movement International, which also compelled audience participation.

AmeriQuests, 2022

Focusing on Zimbabwe-born/South Africa-based Dan Halter's 'Rifugiato Mappa del Mondo (Refugee Map of the World)' as my commentary's point of departure, the text demonstrates how an art museum can use works from its permanent collection to mobilize and engage in community-building with refugees and migrants. Embedding historical and contemporary discourses on migration topics, displaying works of refugee and migrant artists becomes vital for upholding values of cultural pluralism – and it proves to be meaningful when the work achieves mass resonance among museum visitors. Credits: Dan Halter (Zimbabwean, born 1977). 'Rifugiato Mappa del Mondo (Refugee Map of the World),' 2016. Stitched-together new and used plastic-weave shopping bags. 7 (unique) from a series of 8. Overall: 72 x 150 inches (182.88 x 381 cm). Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum. By Exchange: Elisabeth H. Gates Fund, James G. Forsyth Fund, Fellows for Life Fund, George Cary Fund and Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Garo, 2016 (2016:4). © Dan Halter. Image courtesy of the artist and WHATIFTHEWORLD.

Liturgy, 2019

Central American Migrations in the Twenty-First Century, 2023

A Psychiatric Clinic, a Monastery, a City and a River. On the (Artistic) Legibility of Disappearance in Topography 237 Deniz Utlu On Behalf of Grief and Anger. Against an Economy of Remembrance Resilience and Resistance 259 Stefanie Graefe The Discreet Charm of Catastrophe. Vulnerability, Resilience, and Critique in the Era of Multiple Crises 279 Thorsten Schneider Artists in Resilience, or: How to Organize Yourself? 297 Sofia Bempeza The Desire of the Exhausted. Notes on Resilience, Resistance, and Adraneia 317 Nele Wulff "Let us be a gear in the machinery and at the same time the obstacle of its operation." Some Thoughts on House of Tupamaras' Manifesto El fracaso es mi estilo 339 Judith Sieber Refusal of Form. The Critical Potential of W.E.B. Du Bois's Charts for the Paris World's Fair, 1900

BEYOND BORDERS: Reflections on the Resistance & Resilience Among Immigrant Youth and Families, 2019

In this manuscript, I argue that while aggressive immigration enforcement practices have denigrated, dehumanized, and inflicted pain on migrant families for decades, President Trump’s “zero-tolerance policy” has promoted exclusionist attitudes that have aggravated anti-immigrant sentiments and perpetuated the abuse of power by immigration officers against vulnerable migrant communities. I emphasize that the criminalization of families seeking international protection, as well as the forced separation of children from their parents, are inhumane, heartless, and have serious psychological consequences on migrants. I also stress that in reaction to this humanitarian crisis, Jesuit institutions and other faith-based organizations must continue to speak out, announce their support for human rights, protest the violence against migrant communities at the US/Mexico border, and firmly confront oppressive forces within US immigration detention facilities. Additionally, I present the case of our artistic team, a group of students and faculty members of a Jesuit university, who offered support to migrant families through meaningful artistic banners that communicate love, grace, compassion, generosity, and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church.

2020

Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 2011